Political DNA

In his press conference on Wednesday, the Prez made a statement that struck me at odd (technically, I suppose he made a number of such statements, but this is one that caused me to stumble when I heard it). I didn't hear the entire press conference live, so I only caught this one yesterday on NPR's The World. As I said, the words caught my attention, but it wasn't until someone sent me an e-mail later yesterday evening pointing out the same statement, that I really started thinking it through. The question was about Vladimir Putin and democracy in Russia, and it received this response:

Now, in terms of whether or not it's possible to reprogram the kind of basic Russian DNA, which is a centralized authority, that's hard to do. We've worked hard to make it appear in their interests -- we made it clear to them that it is in their interests to have good relations with the West. And the best way to have good long-term relations with the West is to recognize that checks and balances in government are important, or recognize there are certain freedoms that are inviolate. So Russia a complex relationship, but it's an important relationship to maintain.

What exactly does he mean that Russian DNA is encoded with centralized authority? Doesn't this go against his whole campaign to expand democracy. Is he now saying that democracy can only be expanded in some places but not in others? I know, it's a fool's errand to look for intellectual consistency in this president, but this seems like a significant point. As my e-mail correspondent pointed out, this was one of the major points in support of the Iraq war. In the lead up to the war, it was argued in some quarters that, after decades of dictatorial rule by Saddam Hussein, Iraqis were simply not capable of establishing a democracy. I googled Iran and "not ready for democracy" and wound up with 12,200 hits. Such an argument was dismissed out of hand by the Bush administration, which hinted that such claims bordered on racism. And yet, here we are. The Russian people simply don't have it in them to accept democracy. The problem certainly can't be with Vladimir Putin, whose been moving to undermine democratic reforms. No, more than six years ago, the Prez "was able to get a sense of" Putin's soul, finding "a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country." So that settles that. And it can't be the Prez or American policy ignoring Putin's backsliding away from democracy. Who's a bigger booster of democracy than our president? No, it must be the fault of the poor Russian people themselves, who are genetically impaired and must work harder than any other group on Earth to move toward the democratic ideal. Maybe they'll be able to work past this genetic impurity, but clearly the Prez doesn't expect that to happen anytime soon.

In the time since I started thinking about this since last night, The Washington Post published an editorial to the same effect in Friday's paper. They've got a number of examples of the Prez talking up the value of promoting democracy across all cultures and races. If you want to pick up this argument yourself sometime, that editorial is a great source of ammunition.